ABSTRACT

The Routledge Handbook of Megachurches provides a survey of global megachurch phenomena, with an international slate of authors introducing existing and emerging research on a wide variety of relevant topics.

Over the past decade, the field of megachurch studies has matured and become global in its scope and orientation. The Handbook offers 33 chapters by top scholars in the field, focusing in particular on:

  • The location, demographic nature, and transnational connections of megachurches.
  • Megachurch worship, hermeneutics, and theology (in theory and practice).
  • Megachurch institutional dynamics.
  • The various ways that megachurches have both influenced and been influenced by their social contexts in terms of class, age, gender, sexuality, and pop culture.

The Handbook's interdisciplinary orientation makes it essential reading for sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, media specialists, pop culture observers, business strategists, leadership consultants, marketing analysts, scholars of religion, and Christian historians, theologians, and missiologists. Experienced scholars of megachurches will gain valuable insight into aspects of megachurch research beyond their own specializations. Scholars new to the field will find the chapters useful as signposts for where to begin their own academic exploration. Christian pastors and laypeople will learn more about this increasingly prominent and influential form of their faith.

part I|110 pages

Geographical Overviews

chapter 101|17 pages

North America

chapter 3|15 pages

Europe

chapter 6|14 pages

Southeast Asia and Australia

chapter 7|16 pages

East and South Asia

part II|72 pages

Transnational Connections

part III|56 pages

Megachurch Worship

part IV|38 pages

Hermeneutics and Theology in Practice

chapter 24817|12 pages

Prosperity and the Therapeutic Turn

chapter 18|11 pages

Charismatic Gifts

chapter 19|13 pages

Deliverance

part V|90 pages

Institutional Dynamics

part VI|92 pages

Social Context

chapter 37626|13 pages

Urbanisms and Imaginaries of Space

chapter 27|15 pages

Ethnicity and Multiculturalism

chapter 28|12 pages

Class

chapter 29|10 pages

Youth

chapter 30|14 pages

Gender and Sexuality

part VII|13 pages

Response

chapter 46833|11 pages

Response

Revivalism and the Meaning of Megachurches 1